Dillon Rahkola: Intro Camp '08

Hej!

This past week, I at a boarding school in Bjerringbro, Denmark, for Rotary's intro camp. I was there with 108 amazing friends who arrived in August in Denmark and will be staying in Denmark with me for this year. I shared a room with a guy from Calgary, and the room next to us was a guy from Edmonton, and a guy from Chilie. To my count there was about 10 exchange students from Canada at this camp, and they were all very amazing people, and so kind. We started talking right away about the things we miss back home. For example; Kraft Dinner, Tim Hortons, hockey, hearing Oh Canada every morning at school and that sort of things. Most Americans didn't know what Kraft Dinner was which I always think is amusing.

At intro camp, we mostly went to danish class, which was pretty overwhelming for me. Half of the class seemed to have had language camp in their district, before this one so they were well ahead of the game. For myself, this was my first danish lesson and they moved pretty fast. I was mostly trying to take it all in, instead of memorizing things while the teacher is saying them. I took many notes, that I will study and use in the future.

Staying at the boarding school, it was easy to spend time with everyone at anytime. With our free time, we met new people, handed out our information (e-mail addresses, mobile phone numbers) to each other. There was a swimming pool with a sauna, billiards table, table tennis, and many other fun things too do to keep everyone busy. We also had organized evening activities in groups, or with all of us. We had a few camp fires, and fun things like that. It was great.

Some days we didn't have danish classes at all (thank God) and they bussed us all out on an excursion. One day we visited the town of Viborg and looked at a beautiful church (pictures below). My favourite day was when we all went to city of Århus which is Denmark's second biggest city. We went to this amazing art museum called ARoS. It is one of Northern Europe's biggest art museums. It was truly amazing. I was in awe. It isn't your typical art museum, it is very hard to explain. Unfortunately we didn't spend too much time in ARoS, and we adventured out to the walking streets of Århus to shop and explore. It is such a beautiful city and I can't wait to go back.

This friday, my class at Tørring Gymnasium is going to ARoS to see one of their exhibits, "Music To See", which was one of my favourites when I visited last week. The exhibit shows many different music video's that are very unique and very beautiful. They all make you think. They show the 5 "best" video's done by the most "innovative and experimental image-makers within the contemporary music video genre. It features; Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham, Anton Corbijn, Spike Jonze, and Mark Romanek. When I went with Rotary, I didn't get to see all of the videos, so I hope I will.

All in all, I had a great week and made great friends. It is amazing how friendly and open Rotary kids are. It is very comforting knowing that some people are going through and feeling exactly the same thing you are going through. It feels better knowing that, because sometimes, you have a feeling that you are the only one. If you talk to many other exchange students, they will tell you this. That they have the same feelings, doubts, and frustrations that you are going through, so it's nice to have people there to talk to your exchange to.